IAC’s Diller: Don’t Expect A Match Spinoff; Google Deal Extended

With personals’ unit Match having grown revenues 25 percent in Q4, would this be a good time for IAC (NSDQ: IACI) to spin it off? At least one analyst wondered that during the company’s Q1 earnings call, but CEO and chairman Barry Diller waved that idea off — at least for now.

“I guess I am the king of spinoffs, with six or seven ago. I would not expect a spin off of Match. it’s such a good asset of this company and is growing so well. I wouldn’t think it would make sense today. But tomorrow, the next day, who knows? We’re always evaluating our holdings, but we’re not expecting a spin off.

— Google (NSDQ: GOOG) extension: The company also announced that it had extended its search contract with Google through March 31, 2016. Diller estimated the Google deal at $5.5 billion over five years.

Diller: “When we said three years ago, there was a lot of skepticism. We estimated revenue of ($3.5 billion) the first time around, it was meant to set a floor for where we think the revenues would go at the very least. It shows everybody that in fact, this is a significant relationship for Google and for us.”

— Mobile: Subscribers logging in through mobile devices grew 135 percent year over year to almost 30 percent of total on Match.com U.S., core subscribers grew 22 percent. “In this past year, we’ve had 50 million apps downloaded,” Diller said, though he didn’t indicate what the revenues from those apps added up to, however.

Still, he and CFO Tom McInerney noted that mobile, along with social media, continue to be the main focus, even if the revenues aren’t matching the investments yet. “Adoption of mobile is outpacing monetization for apps like Dictionary.com, but Match is doing very well,” McInerney said. “Mobile is years behind the internet in terms of monetization hasn’t arrived yet. As Barry has said, we’re trying to get out in front of that.”

— Newsweek/The Daily Beast: “We have the experience of having one of the first, if not the first, stand-alone, originally produced news sites with The Daily Beast along with a revered legacy magazine in Newsweek,” Diller said. “We’re still in the process of merging these two properties and I wouldn’t expect much else to say over the next six- to nine months.”